"Ever hear of this little place down in Louisiana, this nowhere town on the Gulf name of Grail?...Difference 'tween the rest of the world and Grial, our surface been peeled away for a couple of hundred years. We in what cha might call plain fuckin' view."
- Louisiana Breakdown

On a highway along the gulf coast, somewhere in
Louisiana, somewhere off the beaten path, there is a part of the
world where a sort of “spiritual anarchy” reigns over the people, a
Cajun stew of faiths and half-faiths mixed together like gumbo, and
like gumbo…hard to dissect, and hard to get
enough of.

Jack Mustaine is headed for that world, but he
doesn’t know it. Headed for it in his shiny red BMW sports car, all
the way from LA, on the way to a beach house in Florida where he can
get his shit together. Jack has absolutely no idea what’s waiting
for him in Gail, but it’s some powerful magic, no doubt
about it.

Thebeemer breaks down on the outskirts of town,
and Jack gets taken in by Joe Dill and his
Vietnamese whore. Joes, a big man in these parts, but
not so big as the Good Gray Man but that’s another story,
or the same
story, but later on, and earlier. Taken in to the
Le Bon Chance,
which has about the same relationship to its name as the sign on my
dad’s mower that said “do not strike here”, meaning, of course, that
if it wouldn’t start you should hit it on the sign with a hammer. Le
Bon Chance. Le Fini Chance, Le No Chance, Le Big Goodbye, that’s
what it is.

It’s where you can get a vile green cocktail
called a Cryptoverde, full of weird stuff and a secret ingredient or
two. It’s where, if your timing is right, like your timing has
anything to do with it, like free will has anything to do with it,
like you really got a choice, it’s where you might meet Vida
Dumars.

Vida is the kind of girl that makes you wonder
what she’s doing here, wherever she is. They called her the princess
in New Orleans where she was the whore of a man
with stronger magic man than her own.
They call her crazy and weird, but they know it’s all
because she’s the Midsummer Queen. Has been for almost twenty years
and tomorrow night her reign is up. It's time for
the town
to pick another ten
year old girl to be queen, to be the
lightning rod for the
town’s luck, and not its good luck. It’s a tradition that
goes back a long ways, when the Good
Grey Man” made a deal with the
town out in the swamp, a deal that costs the town dearly though they
don’t like to think of it that way.
And tomorrow night he's coming to take his pay.

Jack Mustaine, singer song-writer from LA,
knight on a red charger, he’s landed right in the middle of a battle
between magical forces, a battle over this girl Vida. He’s in way
over his head and he doesn’t know it yet. But he
will. Oh yes. You want your American Gods? We got em right here in
Grail.

Will the boy get the girl? Will they ride off
into the sunset together? Will love conquer all? Sure thing,
cher. Laissez Les Bon Temps Roule,cause all that’s gonna happen. Just remember that this is Louisiana,
not LA. Just remember that things here got their own agenda.

Now let me warn you. I’ve been down to New
Orleans a few times and away from it once or twice. It’s the only
place in this country that strikes me as genuinely alien, and
despite heat and humidity that make New Jersey feel like paradise,
despite grimy streets and the smell of urine and vomit in the French
Quarter, and despite the certain knowledge that, as Poppy Z. Brite
says in her introduction, “You won’t really understand it unless
you're from there...” despite all that, I promise you that once it
gets under your skin it’s there for good, and having it there won’t
make you comfortable. But you’ll want more.

At 145 pages the only thing
disappointing about Louisiana Breakdown is its size. Here's hoping
Lucius Shepard keeps on writing stories like these.